1. Technical Field
The present invention related to telecommunication networks and, more particularly, to signal transfer point systems in an Advanced Intelligent Network.
2. Related Art
Developments with the telecommunication industry has significantly improved the ability for people to communicate, exchange data, perform research, and, more generally, the ability to access information resources that were unavailable even in recent history to the common person. The new communication networks are altering the business landscape and are altering the very way individuals work, shop, and keep in touch with each other. Not only, for example, can one use cellular phone service or e-mail to communicate with others, one can also now obtain large documents, graphic images, databases, and other types of information having significant memory footprints through wireless and wireline networks.
The manner in which the communication networks are evolving creates a need for more capable information access tools (computers and transceivers, for example). The new tools, in turn, create a need for new networks having increased data throughput capacity and reliability. New networks and information exchange capabilities that were unimaginable even in recent times are being developed and implemented in a way that impacts businesses and individuals in a significant way. For example, standalone computers may now be integrated with wireless radio telephones to allow the transmission of information from the computer to a destination by way of a wireless communication network and then by way of the Internet.
The recent explosion of the Internet is creating the capability and desire for networks of all types to be integrated and coupled to exchange data signals carrying the varying types of information. In many cases, the same data also will be transported through a local area network (LAN) and/or through a telecommunications network prior to being delivered to the Internet. Thus, by way of example, a digitized signal can be transported from a desktop computer through a telephone network to an Internet service provider and through the Internet to a final destination.
New international standards and protocols are being approved to make communication devices created by companies throughout the world compatible with each other. These protocols and standards are used to guide the design of the communication devices, and more specifically, to guide the design of the operating logic and software within the devices. While communication devices that are designed in view of these standards do not always follow the suggested models exactly, they are usually compatible with the protocol-defined interfaces (physical and logical). In order to appreciate the construction and operation of many devices, it is important to generally understand the concepts of some of the significant protocol standards and models.
One important model that currently guides development efforts is the International Standards Organization (ISO) Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. ISO/OSI provides a network framework or model that allows equipment from different vendors to communicate with each other. The OSI model organizes the communication process into seven different categories or layers and places these layers in a sequence based on their relation to the user. Layers 1 through 3 provide actual network access and control. Layers 4 through 7 relate to the point to point communications between the message source and destination.
More specifically, the seven layers in the OSI model work together to transfer communication signals through a network. Layer 1 includes the physical layer meaning the actual hardware that transmits currents having a voltage representing a bit of information. Layer 1 also provides for the functional and procedural characteristics of the hardware to activate, maintain, and deactivate physical data links that transparently pass the bit stream for communication between data link entities. Layer 2 is the data link layer or the technology specific transfer layer that effectuates and controls the actual transmissions between network entities. For example, layer 2 provides for activation, maintenance, and deactivation of data link connections, character and frame synchronization, grouping of bits into characters and frames, error control, media access control and flow control.
Layer 3 is the network layer at which routing, switching and delaying decisions are made to create a path through a network. Such decisions are made in view of the network as a whole and of the available communication paths through the network. For example, decisions as to which nodes should be used to create a signal path are decided at layer 3. As may be seen, layers 1, 2 and 3 control the physical aspects of data transmission.
While the first three layers control the physical aspects of data transmission, the remaining layers relate more to communication functionality. To illustrate, layer 4 is the transport layer that defines the rules for information exchange and manages the point to point delivery of information within and between networks including providing error recovery and flow control. Layer 5 is the session layer that controls the basic communications that occur at layer 4. Layer 6 is the presentation layer that serves as a gateway (a type of xe2x80x9csoftwarexe2x80x9d interface) between protocols and syntax of dissimilar systems. Layer 7 is the application layer that includes higher level functions for particular application services. Examples of layer 7 functions include file transfer, creation of virtual terminals, and remote file access.
Each of the above defined layers are as defined by the OSI model. While specific implementations often vary from what is defined above, the general principles are followed so that dissimilar devices may communicate with each other.
With respect to the telephony networks, and especially in Signaling System No. 7 (SS7) network layer 1 is frequently referred to as message transfer part layer 1 (MTP 1) while layer 2 is MTP 2 and layer 3 is MTP 3. Layer 4 is often referred to as the signal connection control part (SCCP) while layer 5 is the Transaction Capabilities Application Part (TCAP). Layer 6 is the Operation, Maintenance and Administration layer (OMAP). With the continuing increase in demand for transporting data, telecommunication systems are being pushed to be increasingly efficient and to handle larger amounts of data. What is needed, therefore, is a method and apparatus that includes the conventional design approaches and that is capable of providing increasingly greater amounts of data throughput.
The present invention provides for a method and an apparatus that implements the Bell Communications Research specification of Signaling System No.7, chapter T1.111.3 MTP-2 algorithm requirements in hardware. By implementing the algorithm in hardware to provide parallel processing on input parameters and start up data, throughput capacity is significantly improved, and processing time is reduced. The software driven implementations of the MTP-2 algorithms that satisfy the requirements of ANSI T1.111.3, are capable of processing a limited number of communications channels. The number of channels that may be processed by the present invention, however, is greatly improved. In the described embodiment of the invention, 64 channels of data may be processed by a field programmable gate array (gate array) that implements the MTP-2 Link State Controller (MLSC) message transfer part (MTP-2) algorithm.
To achieve such results, the MLSC gate array includes circuitry that parses incoming signaling into three different groups. One group is transmitted to a state logic state machine, while another is transmitted to a test module state machine that performs tests on a given signal and passes the test results to the state logic state machine, and third group is transmitted to an operations module that performs logical mathematical operations based upon the input signaling to produce the results to the state logic state machine. Accordingly, the parallel processing occurs in the MLSC gate array that supports very fast signal processing. The number of communication channels that may be processed by one system is greatly increased.